findings are accurate from the standpoint of the researcher, the participant, or the readers of an account Creswell, 2009: 191.
One common technique to improve the quality of trustworthiness is triangulation. According to Yin in Creswell, 2009: 190, there are four main
types of triangulation: by source – data are collected from different sources; by
methods – different data collection strategies are used such as individual
interviews and participant observation; by researcher – which involves the use of
more than one researcher to analyze the data, develop and test the identification; and by theories
– multiple theories and perspective are considered during data analysis and interpretation. The researcher applied the triangulation technique by
sources and by other researchers in this research. To gain the credibility, the researcher analyzed the data in a deep
observation. The researcher was convinced that the data collected were suitable with the objectives of this study by applying triangulation technique. The
researcher used sources and researchers technique in this study. The sources such as books, papers, articles, and some others related to the gossip were used in this
study. The researcher also triangulated the data by asking the supervisors, prominent lecturers who are keen in sociolinguistics field, and also some
colleagues of English language and literature majoring in linguistics as peer reviewers to confirm the data collected.
56
CHAPTER IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
This chapter is divided into two parts. They are findings of the research and discussion of data analysis. The findings present and describe the frequency
of occurrences as well as percentages of types, speech features and functions of gossip among female characters in Gossip Girl Season 1. Then, the discussion
shows further explanation and description according to the findings. Some examples from the data are presented to encourage the description. Some
important parts in the examples are highlighted.
A. Findings
This section consists of three parts. The first part is related to the types of gossip among female characters in Gossip Girl Season 1. The second is about the
speech features of gossip among female characters in Gossip Girl Season 1. Then, the third is about the functions of gossip among female characters in Gossip Girl
Season 1. The findings are presented in tables.
1. Types of Gossip among Female Characters in Gossip Girl Season 1
There are four types of gossip. They are House Talk HT, Scandal SC, Bitching BI and Chatting CH. The findings of the types of gossip among the
female characters in Gossip Girl Season 1 are presented in Table 2.
Table 2. Types of Gossip among Female Characters in Gossip Girl Season 1
No. Types of Gossip
Frequency Percentage
1. House Talk HT
8 17.77
2. Scandal SC
3 6.67
3. Bitching BI
9 20
4. Chatting CH
25 55.56
Total 45
100
Table 2 clearly shows that, although the frequency of the occurrences is
never the same from one to another, the female characters in Gossip Girl Season 1 employ all types of gossip. The most appearing phenomenon is chatting. It
occurs 25 times out of the total 45 data. In other words, from the total 100, its percentage is 55.56. It is more than half of the data. Following chatting, as the
second most often appearing phenomenon, there is bitching. Its number of occurrences is quite different from the previous ranks. It only appears nine times
with the percentage of 20 of the total 100. After that, house talk ranks the third. It occurs eight times out of 45 data, or the same as 17.77 of the total
100. Finally, the last type of gossip, which is scandal, occurs three times. It gets 6.67 from the total 45 data. The number of findings shows how those types of
gossip are used by female characters in Gossip Girl Season 1. The highest rank of types of gossip shows that chatting is most often uttered by women. In contrast,
the lowest rank type shows that women in this TV Series rarely use such type of gossip in their utterances. This suggests that the female characters in this TV
Series mostly use chatting in delivering gossip as they have mutual relationship
